ElevenLabs valued at $11bn after $500m AI funding round

UK-based intelligence firm ElevenLabs has raised another $500 million in new funding, pushing its valuation to $11 billion and cementing its position as one of Britain’s most valuable private technology companies.

The latest round was led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz and actor Matthew McConaughey. The deal more than triples ElevenLabs’ valuation from a year ago and brings total cash raised since its 2022 launch to $781 million.

Founded in London by ex-Google engineer Piotr Dąbkowski and former Palantir employee Mati Staniszewski, ElevenLabs has quickly become a world leader in AI-generated speech. Its technology converts text into highly realistic, human-like speech, supports multi-language transcription, and has recently expanded into music and audio production.

The platform is increasingly being adopted by businesses to build AI-powered customer service agents that can converse naturally in more than 30 languages. Clients include Deliveroo, Deutsche Telekom, Square, Revolut and the Ukrainian government.

The company has also been at the center of wider debates about voice and intellectual property. In response, ElevenLabs last year launched a “unique voice marketplace”, allowing actors and venues to license their voices for commercial use. Prominent participants include Michael Caine and Liza Minnelli, who have rights to approve or reject individual requests.

The move is seen as an important effort to establish safeguards in an industry facing increasing scrutiny of consent, abuse and fake content. ElevenLabs previously settled a legal dispute with actors who claimed their voices were used without permission.

Without a word, the company expanded its ambitions. In August it launched an AI music generator capable of producing studio-quality tracks from text commands, and continues to invest heavily in transcription, transcription and conversational AI.

Dąbkowski said the latest funding will accelerate ElevenLabs’ expansion beyond speaking. “We started by creating a voice that sounds human,” he said. “We are now developing the underlying models for all speech, transcription, music and conversational agents with the world’s leading research team.”

The rating level underscores investors’ continued appetite for AI infrastructure companies, as concern mounts with valuations rising across the sector. ElevenLabs’ growth, however, reflects strong business demand for tools that bring automation closer to human interaction — a space that many believe will define the next phase of AI adoption.